VII. The Bush Profiteers:100 Donors Who Enjoy Hands-off, Handout Government

In identifying the economic and ideological interests of Bush’s
donors, researchers kept coming across large contributors who became known
as the “Bush Profiteers.” Many of these Bush Profiteers are:

Corporate welfare kings who derived a portion of their personal wealth
from the taxpayers; or

Donors who appear to have an interest in taking the regulatory cops off
the beat.

In fact, many large Bush donors straddle both camps, seeming to want the
government off their backs—except when it is giving them taxpayers’ money.
The ranks of the Bush Profiteers include corporate welfare kings, snake
oil salesmen, money launderers, tax evaders, tort dodgers, tobacco hacks
and toxic waste dumpers.

The following Bush Profiteer profiles cite the total amount of money
that the Profiteers contributed to Bush’s two gubernatorial campaigns (some
totals include the contributions of nuclear family members).

1. *Charles & Sam Wyly (Dallas): $210,273These brothers own diverse companies, including Maverick Capital Fund,
which received a lucrative University of Texas Investment Management Co.
contract to invest UT funds in ’98. Both were members of GHWB’s Team 100,
a precursor of Bush’s fundraising “Pioneers.”

2. *Louis Beecherl, Jr & III (Dallas): $154,000Louis Beecherl, Jr., was a top cheerleader for a record $380 million
Dallas bond initiative to dam the Trinity River. Critics call it a boondoggle
that will line the pockets of Beecherl and the other project boosters who
own adjacent lands.

3. *Tom & R. Steven Hicks (Dallas): $146,000Tom Hicks is a corporate raider at Hicks Muse Tate & Furst (other
name partners gave GWB $58,000). He made GWB’s fortune when he bought the
Texas Rangers for $250 million in ’99. After GWB’s election, UT Regents
set up the University of Texas Investment Management Co. and made Hicks
chair; lucrative UT investment contracts then flowed to firms tied to Hicks
and his brother, who headed Capstar Broadcasting.

4. *Tom Loeffler (San Antonio): $141,000This Arter & Hadden lobbyist co-chaired GHWB’s Team 100, a Pioneers
precursor. A University of Texas Investment Management Co. (UTIMCO) director,
Loeffler voted for the UTIMCO contract for Maverick Capital (see the Wylies
above) at a UTIMCO meeting that Tom Hicks hosted on symbolic ground: the
Rangers’ Ballpark. To see what GWB’s administration did for an Arter &
Hadden client, see W. James Jonas, No. 50.

5. Peter O’Donnell, Jr. (Dallas): $141,000A retired banker who once chaired the Texas GOP, O’Donnell has acknowledged
that the CIA used his O’Donnell Foundation as a secret funding conduit.

6. Lonnie ‘Bo’ Pilgrim (Pittsburg, TX): $125,000This poultry king doled out $10,000 checks to state senators on the
Senate floor in ’89 to gut workers’ compensation laws. His company has
attracted more than $500,000 in pollution fines in the last decade. Now
Pilgrim wants to inject 500 gallons of chicken waste a minute into underground
wells. Critics say it will endanger local water quality.

7. *Kenneth & Linda Lay (Houston): $122,500Lay’s Enron gas hired two GHWB cabinet members as they left office
(see James Baker, No. 56, and Robert Mosbacher, No. 30). After GHWB’s ’93
Gulf War victory tour of Kuwait, several members of his entourage, including
Baker, stayed on to hustle Enron contracts. The Clinton administration
also threatened to cut Mozambique’s aid in ’95 if it did not give Enron
a contract. Former Enron president Richard Kinder also gave GWB $119,409.

8. Ray L. Hunt (Dallas): $105,000Oil heir Hunt and Dallas’ city manager secretly planned the $210 million
Reunion development for a year before briefing the city council. Hunt was
the sole bidder for this private-public deal that appeared to be written
by Hunt’s lawyers. Hunt hired John Scovell ($1,000 to GWB) to head his
development company. Scovell’s father sat on Dallas committees that selected
Reunion as the site of a new sports arena.

9. David H. Dewhurst III (Houston): $105,000An ex-CIA operative, Dewhurst made a fortune at Falcon Seaboard oil,
where he paid $1 million to settle fraud and embezzlement charges by business
partners. Dewhurst personally guaranteed $4 million in loans to his successful
’98 Texas General Land Commissioner campaign. His primary opponent said
Dewhurst offered to bankroll his campaign, too—if he would run for another
office.

10. Richard E. Rainwater (Ft. Worth): $100,000Rainwater was a key investor in the Texas Rangers and Columbia/HCA
Healthcare, which the government is investigating on Medicare fraud charges
(see Richard Scott, No. 65). GWB received $37,500 from executives of Rainwater’s
Crescent Real Estate (see Gerald Haddock, No. 33), which bought two buildings
from the state in ’96 at bargain-basement prices. GWB’s personal blind
trust invested in Crescent during his first term.

11. William A. McMinn (Brenham): $100,000McMinn works with Sterling Chemical and the Sterling Group, whose principals
have contributed $251,000 to GWB. The Sterling Group buys and sells chemical
companies. Sterling Chemical releases 11 million pounds of toxic chemicals
a year, chiefly from its Texas City plant, which is in a neighborhood that
is 88 percent African American.

12. William L. Hutchison (Dallas): $100,000This head of Hutchison Energy conspired with ex-Governor Bill Clements
(No. 23) and others in a scandal involving six-figure payments to Southern
Methodist University athletes. The scandal triggered the toughest enforcement
penalties in NCAA history.

13. Harold Simmons (Dallas): $90,000This corporate raider is a recidivist violator of federal campaign
contribution limits. His companies have a history of raiding worker pension
funds and despoiling the environment. Simmons’ chemical arm, NL Industries,
has been named as potentially responsible for three Superfund sites. His
Waste Control Specialists wants to dump nuclear waste in West Texas (see
Kent Hance, No. 18).

15. James Leininger (San Antonio): $82,750A maker of oscillating hospital beds, Leininger became a “tort reformer”
when plaintiffs said the beds dropped them, crushed them or sprayed them
with silicone. A fundraising letter revealed in ’98 that his school voucher
PAC was working with Texans for Lawsuit Reform to topple Texas’ House Speaker.
Leininger’s Christian–right telemarketing firm got corporate welfare from
Canton, Texas as a condition of locating there.

16. “Tex” Moncrief, Jr. (Ft. Worth): $75,927IRS agents raided Moncrief Oil in ’94, seeking evidence of an alleged
$100 million tax fraud. U.S. Senators made donor Moncrief a star witness
in a ’98 hearing on IRS abuses. The senators failed to mention that Tex
had agreed to one of the largest individual tax settlements in history.

18. *Kent Hance (Austin): $51,000Hance is a lobbyist and ex-Congressman who invested in Waste Control
Specialists (WCS). WCS lost a’95 battle for permission to dump nuclear
waste in West Texas. After Harold Simmons (No. 13) bought a controlling
interest, however, WCS won a victory. In ’99, GWB’s Natural Resource Conservation
Commissioners nixed plans for a competing state-run nuclear dump.

19. Dan W. Cook, III (Dallas): $49,600A Goldman Sachs partner, Cook was a top fundraiser for Texas Senator
Kay Bailey Hutchison’s ‘90 state treasurer race. When Hutchison became
treasurer she gave Cook’s firm a $300 million contract to sell state bonds.

20. *J. Huffines, Jr. & Family (Dallas): $42,500J.L. Huffines, Jr. and family own a string of Dallas-area car dealerships
and part of the Dallas Cowboys. Huffines and Thomas A. O’Dwyer ($1,000
to GWB) were accused of meeting to organize a secret Texas A&M “slush
fund” for football players. The men denied the accusations, but the NCAA
severely punished the team for the scandal. James Huffines is a GWB Pioneer.

21. Paul J. Meyer, Sr. (Waco): $41,500Meyer’s SMI/USA sells self-improvement tapes through franchises. Meyer
and SMI paid $300,000 in ’95 to settle federal charges that they had misled
their franchise salespeople for decades about how much they could earn
hawking the tapes.

22. Gordon Cain (Houston): $41,000Cain is the founder of the Sterling Group, which is associated with
a string of polluting chemical companies (see William McMinn, No. 11).

23. William & Rita Clements (Dallas): $40,106Ex-Governor Bill Clements founded SEDCO oil company and was Nixon’s
Acting Secretary of Defense. Clements and others conspired in a scandal
involving six-figure payments to Southern Methodist University athletes,
prompting the only “death penalty” in NCAA history. Clements and his co-conspirators
then covered up the scandal to protect his gubernatorial campaign. GWB
appointed Clements’ wife as a UT Regent.

24. Scott A. Beck (Golden, CO): $40,000Beck took Boston Chicken (BC) on a rapid-growth binge that ended in
company bankruptcy in ’98. Investors were hoodwinked by strong BC revenue
reports; most of this revenue came from repayments of loans BC made to
franchises to keep them afloat.

25. Woody L. Hunt (El Paso): $39,000GWB appointed the owner of Hunt Building as a UT Regent. The federal
government sued the firm for Air Force housing that it said was 50 percent
uninhabitable and could not withstand South Dakota winds. Hunt settled
for $8.8 million in ‘99.

26. David/Charles Koch (Wichita, KS): $25,000Koch Industries oil spills trigger repeated lawsuits; the State of
Texas is suing the company. It paid $10.5 million in ’98 to settle a fishery
lawsuit that followed its spill of crude into Nueces Bay. A federal jury
ruled in ’99 that Koch should pay $553,504 for oil it pilfered from Indian
lands.

27. A. Glenn Braswell (Miami, FL): $25,000This “VITA Industries” donor appears to be the man who Quackwatch says,
“probably set a record as the person against whom the Postal Service filed
the largest number of health-related false representation claims.” A. Glenn
Braswell pled guilty to faking before-and-after photos for baldness and
bust-enhancement remedies.

28. Kenneth N. Bigham (Houston): $25,000Bigham is president of Waste Control Specialists, which wants to dump
nuclear waste in West Texas (see Kent Hance, No. 18).

31. Jim Bob Moffett (New Orleans, LA): $21,000Moffett’s Freeport-McMoRan operates the world’s biggest gold mine in
Indonesia, where it had cozy relations with Suharto’s dictatorship. Freeport
lavished Suharto cronies with gifts and financed Indonesian troops, which
have been implicated in the deaths of dozens of indigenous people who resisted
expansion of the polluting mine.

32. Othal E. Brand (McAllen): $21,000This Rio Grande Valley produce magnate made national news brandishing
a gun against striking farm workers. Appointed to a state pesticide board
by ex-Governor Clements (No. 23), he dismissed a proposed chlordane ban,
saying, “Sure, it’s going to kill a lot of people, but they may be dying
of something else anyway.” As McAllen mayor, Brand solved the colonias
problem with an ordinance prohibiting slum residents from complaining about
bad housing or water.

33. Gerald W. Haddock (Ft. Worth): $21,000GWB received $37,500 from four executives of Richard Rainwater’s (No.
10) Crescent Real Estate, led by CEO Haddock. GWB approved the sale of
two state office buildings to Crescent in ’96 at a large loss to taxpayers.

35. Vance C. Miller (Dallas): $20,000Miller heads a huge real estate brokerage. Federal bill collectors
have been seeking $23 million from him for a decade to cover his guarantees
of bad real estate loans. “I take a dim view of people who do not pay their
bills,” Federal District Judge Joe Fish told Miller in ‘98. “Especially
when no effort seems to have been made to pay.”

36. William & George Hume (SF, CA): $20,000The Humes founded Basic American Foods. They were big funders of California’s
Prop 226, which would have required labor unions to get permission from
each member before contributing their dues to political campaigns. Conservative
school board candidates put the ’98 initiative on the ballot after teacher
unions backed their opponents.

37. *Marshall B. Payne (Dallas): $20,000Payne is a partner in Cardinal Investment Co. with Edward “Rusty” Rose
($40,805 to GWB). Their other business investments include: the Texas Rangers;
defense contractor Sierra Technologies; and Ace Cash Express, which cashes
checks for the working poor for 3% to 6% of face value.

38. Roy Huffington family (Houston): $18,000Huffington’s Huffco made a huge Indonesian gas strike in ’72. Huffco
sent the Suharto dictatorship illegal shipments of billy clubs and shock
batons in the ‘80s, which spoiled Reagan’s plans to make Roy’s son an assistant
secretary of Commerce. Michael Huffington then shattered campaign-spending
records trying to be a California Senator.

39. Robert McDermott (San Antonio): $18,000McDermott owned the San Antonio Spurs and was CEO of insurer United
Services Automobile Association (USAA). USAA got exempted from a ’95 state
law to discourage insurers from racial discrimination. A legislator also
credited USAA for getting GWB to veto a ‘97 insurance bill.

40. Steven D. Bedowitz (Irving): $17,000Bedowitz headed Amre aluminum siding company, which produced what the
New York Times called, “one of the great accounting frauds of the 1980s.”
In ‘92, Bedowitz settled federal charges that Amre inflated financial reports
to investors.

41. Charles Cawley (Wilmington, DE) $16,215Cawley is CEO of a huge credit card company. He and 55 other MBNA executives
and managers gave GWB $115,556. Half this money moved in ’98, when the
industry that distributes credit cards like candy urged Congress to punish
“irresponsible” consumers who declare bankruptcy.

42. *Wayne Berman (Washington, DC): $16,000Berman is a lobbyist and ex-GHWB assistant secretary of commerce. An
ex-Connecticut state treasurer recently pled guilty to corruption charges
involving politicians and lobbyists who took “finder’s fees” from firms
to which he gave contracts to manage state pension funds. Berman reportedly
landed a $900,000 fee and hired the corrupt ex-treasurer as a lobbyist.
After reports of this scandal, Berman has reportedly suspended Pioneer
fundraising, but the GWB campaign has not returned the $100,000 or more
he raised.

43. D. Andrew Beal (Dallas): $16,000Beal founded Beal Bank of Dallas and Beal Aerospace Technologies, which
wants to build a private satellite launch pad on the Caribbean’s Sombrero
Island. Critics say this endangers the island’s brown booby nesting population
and a lizard species found nowhere else on the planet.

44. Robert Dedman, Jr. & Sr. (Dallas): $15,591The Dedmans’ Club Corp. is the world's biggest resort chain. In ‘97,
Dedman, Sr., gave $3 million to UT for stadium improvements. In a rare
move, UT did not publicize the gift, which came at a time when Club Corp.
was the sole bidder for a $10 million contract to run a private club at
UT’s football stadium. Club Corp. got the contract.

45. *Teel Bivins & Family (Amarillo): $15,500State Senator Teel Bivins is an overzealous GWB Pioneer. In ’99, he
wrote state legislators in 50 states telling them they could legally transfer
$1,000 from their war chests to GWB’s. Such diversions are illegal in at
least four states.

47. *Jim/Charles Francis (DC/Dallas): $14,000Charles Francis of State Affairs public relations recruited Ken Hoagland
as a Texas spinmeister for Big Tobacco. When State Affairs formed the National
Smokers Alliance (NSA), it tried to recruit Francis’ brother, Jim, to its
Texas board. Jim oversees GWB’s Pioneers and is the GWB- appointed chair
of the Texas Department of Public Service.

48. William & Mary Ceverha (Dallas): $14,000Revolving-door lobbyist William Ceverha championed the biggest taxpayer
boondoggle in Dallas history (see Louis Beecherl, Jr., No. 2). His wife
is vice chair of the Texas Board of Health, which sold out consumers to
the diet supplement industry in ‘99 (see W. James Jonas, No. 50).

49. John C. Goff (Ft. Worth): $13,500GWB received $37,500 from four executives of Rainwater’s Crescent Real
Estate, led by President Goff (a Texas Rangers investor) and CEO Gerald
W. Haddock (No. 33). GWB approved the sale of two state office buildings
to Crescent in ’96 at a large taxpayer loss.

50. W. James Jonas, III: (San Antonio): $12,700As Texas prepared to regulate the weight-loss supplement ephedrine
(linked to eight Texas deaths), vendor Metabolife hired Arter & Hadden
lobbyist Jonas and his partner Jeff Wentworth ($5,500 to GWB), who is a
state Senator with influence over the health agency’s budget. These lawyers
and Metabolife President Michael J. Ellis No. 82) all moved same-day “bundled”
contributions of $2,500 or more to GWB in October ‘98. In early ’99, GWB’s
Health Commissioner, Reyn Archer, and the Texas Board of Health approved
indulgent ephedrine rules that mirrored a draft supplied by the industry.

51. Robert Brittingham Family (Dallas): $12,500Robert and Jack Brittingham sold one of the nation’s largest ceramic
tile companies
for $650 million in ‘90. Robert Brittingham was convicted in ’93 for
illegally dumping Dal-Tile lead wastes. A federal judge fined him $4 million
dollars—then the largest environmental fine ever levied on an individual.

52. Robert & W. B. Waltrip (Houston): $11,100Waltrip owns SCI, the world’s largest funeral company. State regulators
recommended a record $445,000 fine against SCI in ’98 for reportedly sending
corpses to unlicensed embalmers. Politically connected SCI (which gave
GWB $35,000 and has ethics-challenged Democratic fundraiser Tony Coelho
on its board) called its chits. GWB’s office held two meetings to dress
down funeral regulators and the agency fired the director who led the investigation.

53. *Erle A. Nye (Dallas): $11,000A GWB-appointed Texas A&M regent, Nye heads Texas Utilities, the
state’s top “grandfathered” air polluter. The ‘71 state Clean Air Act exempted
existing industrial plants from new pollution rules. Rather than closing
this loophole, GWB got Exxon and Marathon to devise a program that invites
these polluters to volunteer to comply with modern pollution standards.
In ’99 utility deregulation legislation, the Legislature closed the grandfather
loophole—but only for utilities.

55. *Howard Leach (SF, CA): $11,000Cypress Farms President Leach was a member of GHWB’s Team 100. Leach
complained to President Bush in ‘92 that California growers needed a gulp
of subsidized Central Valley water. When they got it just 10 days later,
Common Cause complained about a big donor getting special perks.

56. James A. Baker, III (Houston): $11,000Baker and Robert Mosbacher, Sr., (No. 30) became paid consultants of
oil giant Enron after exiting GHWB’s cabinet through the revolving door.
Baker and Gulf War Joint Chiefs operations director Lt. General Thomas
Kelly joined GHWB on a ‘93 victory tour of Kuwait, staying on to lobby
the government for Enron contracts.

57. Tom Schieffer (Arlington): $10,000After becoming Governor, GWB put his assets in a blind trust—except
for the goose that laid his golden egg. Texas Rangers President Schieffer
kept GWB informed of the play-by-play negotiations to sell the team to
Tom Hicks for a huge profit in ‘99.

59. Jack Y. Wu (Port Lavaca): $10,000As vice president of a Port Lavaca Formosa Plastics plant in ‘95, Wu
said, “I feel very, very proud of what we’ve done here—our air quality,
water quality.” This plant was fined $247,000 for wastewater violations,
settled hazardous waste dumping charges for $3 million, admitted that an
employee took kickbacks from contractors and found two workers floating
in a chemical vat. The plant hired Joe Wyatt ($1,000 to GWB) to do its
PR after a sex scandal removed him from Congress. At the time, Wyatt’s
wife sat on the state board that granted pollution permits to this plant.

61. Roger Staubach (Dallas): $10,000This ex-Dallas Cowboys star wants to build 1,060 homes in Dallas. Staubach
Co. tried a quarterback sneak in ’99, asking the city for $7.6 million
to finance infrastructure in the private development. Competitors complained
that the city had always reserved such corporate welfare for retail and
industrial developments. In response, Staubach Co. withdrew its request—until
the city sets a policy for non-celebrity homebuilders.

62. Howard L. Hills (Washington, DC): $10,000This Stroock & Lavan attorney is an ex-vice president of the federal
Overseas Private Investment Corp (OPIC). OPIC is a huge source of corporate
welfare, providing loans, loan guarantees and political risk insurance
to U.S. firms investing in developing countries. Big corporations that
can afford to buy these services in the private sector are the main recipients
of these taxpayer subsidies.

63. José Fanjul (Palm Beach, FL): $10,000The “First Family of Corporate Welfare,” the Fanjuls control a third
of Florida sugar production, collecting $60 million a year in federal subsidies.
Their Everglades land was drained at public expense, an environmental nightmare
that costs taxpayers $63 million a year to maintain. The Fanjuls invest
heavily in politicians; President Clinton even took a call from José’s
brother Alfonso while being serviced by Monica Lewinsky.

64. Randolph L. DeLay (Richmond): $10,000Randy DeLay declared bankruptcy in ’92 after failing a string of businesses.
But when his brother Tom became House majority whip in ’95, Randy opened
his own lobby shop with corporate clients and a six-figure salary. These
clients seemed to get two DeLay brothers for the price of one, with Tom
carrying a lot of water for Randy’s clients.

66. Randy Best (Dallas): $10,000Best’s Voyager Expanded Learning runs for-profit, after-school classes.
Dallas’ school superintendent abruptly resigned in ‘97 to work for Voyager.
His hand-picked successor gave Voyager a $500,000 contract without seeking
competing bids. GWB urged the Legislature to spend $25 million on such
after-school programs in ’97; his education commissioner opposed efforts
to regulate Voyager.

67. C. Boyden Gray (Washington, DC): $10,000White House Counsel to President Bush, Gray became a revolving-door
lobbyist at Wilmer, Cutler & Pickering. Gray has led the corporate
denial of global warming and heads the corporate front group Citizens
for a Sound Economy.

68. Robert J. Santoski (Houston): $10,000Santoski is a big Sterling Group investor. It is associated with a
string of polluting chemical companies (see donor William McMinn, No. 11).

70. Dan Shelley (Austin): $9,000Shelley was GWB’s legislative director in ’95, when Texas overhauled
its welfare system. When he hit the revolving door to make up to $675,000
as a lobbyist for Lockheed (which was bidding to run the Texas welfare
system), GWB adopted a belated staff ethics policy. (GWB also got $5,000
from DC Lockheed lobbyist David Metzner.)

71. Heinz C. Prechter (Southgate, MI): $9,000The chair of American Sunroof Corp., Prechter was an elite GHWB “Team
100” fundraiser. GHWB put him on the President’s Export Council and took
him on a state visit to Japan that netted Prechter a sweet deal to sell
sunroofs to Honda.

72. *Allan Shivers, Jr. (Austin): $8,000The son of an ex-governor, Shivers is president of Texans for Quality
Health Care. This HMO trade group opposed a ’97 Texas law that makes HMOs
liable for harm that patients suffer when an HMO denies doctor-prescribed
care. This law took effect after GWB failed to veto it (which would have
angered doctors and patients) or sign it (which would have angered a powerful
industry).

73. J. Patrick Rooney (Indianapolis, IN): $7,700Rooney quit a ‘95 Indiana gubernatorial race after media found that
his Golden Rule Insurance does not practice that religious principle. Golden
Rule has an alarming rate of not paying customers’ claims and denying coverage
to senior citizens. Rooney was a top donor to Newt Gingrich, who plugged
Golden Rule in televised lectures.

74. Billy Meyer (Waco): $7,500Meyer operates a car racetrack in Ennis, Texas. He wanted Grand Prairie
voters to buy him another one in ’99. But cooler heads prevailed; 54 percent
of the voters put the brakes on this public financing of private profits.

75. Richard M. Plato (Baytown): $7,000Plato will never contribute to GWB as a lawyer again. He was disbarred
in ’98 after pleading guilty to wire fraud, conspiracy and money laundering.

76. Edgar Cullman, Jr. (New York, NY): $7,000Although GWB pledged not to take money from tobacco PACs or executives
for his gubernatorial races, this CEO of General Cigar Holdings contributed
to both GWB gubernatorial races. GWB has backpedaled in his presidential
run, forswearing tobacco PAC money but openly taking money from top tobacco
executives.

77. George P. Mitchell (Woodlands): $6,750Mitchell is a developer and oil tycoon. People in Wise County say they
can ignite their well water because Mitchell Energy failed to cap area
gas wells. Jurors awarded them $204 million, but Texas Supreme Court justices
overturned the award. Mitchell was to settle related charges before the
Texas Railroad Commission for a record $2.2 million, but commissioners
cut the fine in half. The commissioners and justices took thousands of
campaign dollars from Mitchell Energy.

79. Lewis M. Eisenberg (Rumsan, NJ): $6,000Eisenberg founded Granite Capital Corp. He chairs the Republican Leadership
Council (RLC), which opposes ultra-conservative influences in the GOP.
Eisenberg raised RLC funds to run ads attacking Steve Forbes for any attack
ad he might run in the future. Forbes filed a complaint arguing that the
RLC is a front for the GWB campaign.

80. George/Richard Wackenhut (FL): $6,000The largest U.S. prison company, Wackenhut Corrections has tens of
millions of dollars in contracts with Texas. The state had to take over
a Wackenhut-run facility in Austin in ’99 following criminal charges that
Wackenhut understaffed the jail, falsified its records and employed guards
that beat and had sex with inmates.

81. *Lee & Ed Bass (Ft. Worth): $5,427GWB got $210,000 from PACs of the oil-rich Bass family. When GWB’s
ailing Harken Oil suspiciously won Bahrain’s offshore drilling rights in
‘90, the Basses financed the venture. When GWB appointed a legislative
committee to reduce property taxes, lobbyist Neal Jones ($2,500 to GWB)
went behind the scenes to defend Bass tax breaks. The committee chair broke
lobby protocol by demanding that they explain publicly why other Texans
should underwrite tax breaks for billionaires. GWB appointed Lee Bass chair
of the Department of Parks and Wildlife. He and Robert Bass were part of
GHWB’s Team 100.

82. Michael J. Ellis (San Diego, CA): $5,000Metabolife President Ellis got GWB’s administration to bury tough rules
for ephedrine weight-loss supplements (see W. James Jonas, No. 50). After
media reports in May ’99 that Ellis and coworker Michael J. Blevins were
convicted of producing the illegal drug methamphetamine in ‘91, GWB’s campaign
returned the $10,000 that they contributed seven months earlier. The timing
suggested that the campaign objected to their “young-and-irresponsible”
drug peddling rather than to big donors peddling influence inside the GWB
administration.

84. H. Ross Perot, Jr., (Dallas): $5,000Voters narrowly approved a $125 million new arena for Perot’s Mavericks
and Tom Hicks’ (No. 3) Stars in ‘98. The public did not know the conflicts
of two top stadium backers until after the vote: Mayor Ron Kirk stood to
make $500,000 from options in a Hicks company and City Manager John Ware
went on Hick’s payroll. Perot also split tiny Westlake, Texas in half.
Residents feared that they would be forced to finance infrastructure for
a big Perot development. Most town leaders embraced the plan, however,
after Perot began offering to buy their properties. Pro-Perot aldermen
fired the mayor (a Perot critic) and voted to remove land that they and
Perot owned from Westlake.

85. Chris B. Burnham: (Stamford, CT): $5,000Burnham resigned as Connecticut Treasurer in ’97 to become the CEO
of Columbus Circle Investors. The year before, he granted Columbus a contract
to manage $150 million in state pension funds.

86. Mark Stiles (Beaumont): $5,000When Stiles chaired the Texas state House committee that determines
which bills get voted on, Texas spent $1.5 billion to double its prison
capacity. Stiles cement company then got contracts to pour cement for new
state prisons. One of the new slammers is the Mark Stiles State Prison.

87. Earl M. Gilbert (Houston): $5,000The state of Texas sued Gilbert and his development companies for selling
flood-plain homes to Spanish-speaking buyers without adequate disclosure.
After a Gilbert subdivision flooded in ’92, he got some flood victims to
sign insurance checks over to him for repairs, which the state called “shoddy
and incomplete.” Gilbert settled the charges in ’95 by agreeing to pay
restitution to the flooded homeowners as well as paying $15,000 in state
legal costs.

88. Peter Huntsman (Salt Lake City) $5,000An uncontrolled chemical flare at Huntsman Petrochemical’s Odessa,
Texas plant in ’98 disgorged a black cloud of toxic chemicals for three
weeks. The Texas Natural Resources Conservation Commission downplayed the
seriousness of the accident until the NAACP presented it with more than
3,000 health complaints from nearby African-American residents. CEO Peter
Huntsman, Sr., disavowed links between these complaints and his plant’s
toxic plume. “Do I believe it’s directly related to what we are doing at
this facility?” he asked. “No, I personally do not believe that.”

89. Evan G. Greenberg (New York, NY): $5,000Evan is president of American Insurance Group (AIG), where his dad,
GWB Pioneer Maurice R. “Hank” Greenberg, is Chair and CEO. Maurice Greenberg
accompanied President Bush on his business tour of China in ’92, becoming
the first foreign company allowed to sell insurance there.

90. Kenneth L. Berry (Corpus Christi): $5,000Berry Construction President Ed Martin sits on the Corpus Christi City
Council. In that capacity, he cast a tie-breaking vote in ’99 to appoint
his boss, Ken Berry, to the Port of Corpus Christi’s board. This convinced
the city to tighten its ethics policies.

91. Hunter Nelson (Houston): $5,000Nelson is an executive at the Sterling Group, which is associated with
a string of polluting chemical companies (see William McMinn, No. 11).

92. Frank Hevrdejs (Houston): $4,000Hevrdejs is president of the Sterling Group, which is associated with
a string of polluting chemical companies in Texas (see William McMinn,
No. 11).

93. Gene N. Fondren (Austin): $4,000This head of the Texas Automobile Dealers Association never stops raising
money for power brokers. Fondren threw a fundraiser for ethics-tainted
ex-Texas Speaker Gib Lewis in ’92, hours after Lewis announced that he
would not seek reelection.

94. Lee Goodman, Jr. (Ft. Worth): $4,000Goodman founded Sensitive Care nursing homes and Creative Living group
homes for the mentally ill. Regulators took over the group homes in the
early ‘90s, charging Goodman with underfunding resident care. Goodman’s
wife, Carolyn, was allowed to take over the business. But in ‘99, the state
seized control of her nursing homes after the federal government stopped
funding them following Medicare fraud allegations.

95. Gary L. Bradley (Austin): $3,500Austin voters passed a ’92 initiative mandating strict environmental
controls for development over an environmentally sensitive aquifer. Ever
since, Bradley and other developers of that land have turned to the courts
and the legislature to try to sidestep this ordinance.

96. Robert D. Rogers (Dallas): $3,000Rogers heads cement giant Texas Industries (TXI), which burns hazardous
wastes for power. Neighbors blame TXI fumes for a litany of health problems
and animal deaths. Ex-TXI lobbyist Ralph Marquez killed a bill to impose
tighter regulations on such emissions before GWB appointed him as a Texas
Natural Resources
Conservation Commissioner. As a commissioner, Marquez voted to approve
two pollution-related permits for TXI.

98. Dwayne O. Andreas (Decatur, IL): $3,000Andreas was chair of Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the agricultural
company that gives millions of dollars to Republicans and Democrats. ADM
receives billions of dollars of corporate welfare, including price and
export subsidies on sugar and ethanol. Andreas resigned in ’99 after ADM
pled guilty to criminal price-fixing and paid the largest criminal antitrust
fine in history.

99. Johnnie B. Rogers (Austin): $3,000Rogers is a lobbyist who represents funeral industry giant Service
Corp. International (see Robert Waltrip, No. 52). The Bush administration
intervened on SCI’s behalf in a pending case in which funeral regulators
recommended a record $445,000 fine against SCI for allegedly jobbing out
corpses to unlicensed embalmers. The administration said GWB had no involvement
in the case—until Rogers acknowledged seeing GWB and SCI’s owner briefly
discuss the issue.

100. Prescott Bush, Jr. (Greenwich, CT): $3,000When GHWB took his first presidential trip abroad in ’89, his brother
made business trips to the same Asian countries. Prescott got a $250,000
consulting fee from investment firm Asset Management International, which
had a contract to set up a satellite communications system for China’s
government. Sanctions GHWB imposed on China after the Tienanmen Square
massacre blocked exports of the requisite satellites. But GHWB fixed that
by declaring an exception because these satellites were “in the national
interest.”